ISSN 0214 - 9915 CODEN PSOTEG
Psicothema 2017, Vol. 29, No. 1, 67-72
doi: 10.7334/psicothema2016.40
Predictors of students’ adjustment during transition
to university in Spain
María Fernanda Páramo Fernández1, Alexandra M. Araújo2, Carolina Tinajero Vacas1, Leandro S. Almeida2
and María Soledad Rodríguez González1
1
Universidad de Santiago de Compostela and 2 Universidade do Minho
Abstract
Background: Adjustment to university is a major life transition that not all
emerging adults manage successfully. The Student University Adjustment
Questionnaire is the instrument most commonly used to evaluate this
multidimensional construct. Research in Spain on the predisposing factors
for successful adjustment to university in emerging adults is scarce relative
to the large number of studies carried out in North America. The objective
of the present study was to analyze the association between students’
gender, family background, pre-university achievement and adjustment to
university. Method: Participants were 300 Spanish first-year students (198
women and 102 men) of mean age 18.02 years. Results: Pre-university
achievement was the only significant predictor of academic, social and
institutional adjustment. Gender directly affected personal-emotional
adjustment and indirectly affected academic adjustment mediated by entry
grade. Conclusions: Students’ entry characteristics predict adjustment to
university in the first year. These findings have important theoretical and
practical implications.
Keywords: First-year university students, SACQ, gender, family
background, pre-university achievement.
Attending university is now a common expectation for
people from diverse cultural and social backgrounds (Moreno,
Rodríguez, Crespo, Juliá, & Fernández-Pacheco, 2013). Most
Spanish students who access Higher Education (HE) are aged 18
to 25 years old, financially dependent on their parents and free of
adult life obligations such as full-time employment, mortgages,
marriage and children. According to Arnett (2000), under
these conditions students are neither adolescents nor adults, but
somewhere in between, at a stage called emerging adulthood.
In Spain, emerging adults construct their identity as part of the
Received: February 2, 2016 • Accepted: October 13, 2016
Corresponding author: María Fernanda Páramo Fernández
Facultad de Psicología
Universidad de Santiago de Compostela
15782 Santiago de Compostela (Spain)
e-mail: mfernanda.paramo@usc.es
Copyright © 2017 Psicothema
www.psicothema.com
Resumen
Predictores del ajuste de los estudiantes durante la transición a la
Universidad en España. Antecedentes: la adaptación a la universidad
es una de las principales transiciones vitales que no todos los adultos
emergentes afrontan con éxito. El Cuestionario de Adaptación del
Estudiante a la Universidad es el instrumento más empleado para
evaluar este constructo multidimensional. En España no existen
investigaciones sobre los factores que predisponen a los adultos
emergentes a una adaptación exitosa a la universidad respecto al número
de investigaciones llevadas a cabo con muestras norteamericanas.
El objetivo de este estudio es analizar la relación entre el género, el
background familiar, la nota de acceso y el ajuste a la universidad.
Método: participaron 300 estudiantes españoles de primer año (198
mujeres y 102 hombres) con un promedio de edad de 18,02 años.
Resultados: la nota de acceso fue el único predictor significativo
del ajuste académico, social e institucional. El género influye de una
manera directa sobre el ajuste personal-emocional e indirecta sobre
el ajuste académico, mediado por la nota de acceso. Conclusiones:
las características de entrada del estudiante predicen su adaptación
en el primer año de universidad. Estos resultados tienen importantes
implicaciones teóricas y prácticas.
Palabras clave: universitarios de primer año, SACQ, género, background
familiar, nota de acceso.
family group, prior to the acquisition of independence or personal
autonomy. This distinctive feature, characteristic of Mediterranean
countries (Fierro & Moreno, 2007), is crucial for understanding
the influence of the family context in Spanish students from a
comparative perspective.
The university experience requires emerging adults to face
a particularly important challenge: to combine the exploration
and lack of definition that are characteristic of adolescence with
characteristics demanded of independent adults in an unknown
and highly competitive environment. However, not all emerging
adults are able to master these developmental tasks and enjoy
a satisfactory experience in HE. As a result, many students
experience problems in the transition to university, including
depression, loneliness, academic difficulties and substance
abuse, which can lead to dissatisfaction, disengagement, lower
achievement and attrition (e.g., Caamaño-Isorna, Corral, Parada,
& Cadaveira, 2008; Friedlander, Reid, Shupak, & Cribbie, 2007).
67
 María Fernanda Páramo Fernández, Alexandra M. Araújo, Carolina Tinajero Vacas, Leandro S. Almeida and María Soledad Rodríguez González
According to the Education at a Glance report (Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development: OECD, 2014), more
than 50% of students in Spain fail to complete college, and much
of this attrition (approximately 26%) occurs in the first year. In
this respect, Spain occupies one of the lowest positions within the
European Union.
The documented difficulties that students experience during
the transition to college, combined with the changing needs of
students, have brought increased attention to adjustment of first-
year university students and interest in improving graduation
rates. Student attrition, low academic yield and excessive amounts
of time invested in degree studies are common problems in all
European Union countries (OECD, 2014).
Adjustment to university is a complex, multifaceted construct
that involves an array of demands that vary in type and degree
and require a variety of coping strategies involving many factors
other than academic performance (Baker & Siryk, 1984). As
suggested by the findings of a meta-analysis conducted by Credé
and Niehorster (2012), adjustment seems crucial to the ability
to perform well academically, to obtain a degree, and to view
the university experience as positive. The Student Adaptation
to College Questionnaire (SACQ) (Baker & Siryk, 1984) was
developed as a self-report measure that describes the adjustment
in terms of efforts made by the student to cope with the academic,
social, personal-emotional and environmental challenges involved
in attending university.
The SACQ has been demonstrated to capture early signs of
problems in adjustment to university and to predict persistence
and academic achievement (Abdullah, Elias, Mahyuddin, & Uli,
2009; Bernier, Larose, Boivin, & Soucy, 2004; Ostrove & Long,
2007; Padgett, Johnson, & Pascarella, 2012; Wintre et al., 2011;
Yazedjian, Toews, & Navarro, 2009). Most studies involving the
SACQ have been conducted with samples of North-American
college students, which limits the extent to which the results can
be applied to other student populations. Some studies have also
been conducted with Dutch-speaking Belgian students (Beyers
& Goossens, 2002), Portuguese students (Rocha & Matos, 2008),
college students in the People’s Republic of China (Tao, Dong,
Pratt, Hunsberger, & Pancer, 2000), Chinese exchange students
in Japan (Jou & Fukada, 1995), Malaysia (Abdullah et al., 2009)
and France (Carayon & Gilles, 2005), and more recently with
Northern Spanish students (Rodríguez, Tinajero, Guisande, &
Páramo, 2012). The findings of these studies reinforce the potential
usefulness of the questionnaire as an internationally relevant
measure of adjustment to university.
Successful adaptation is brought about by a complex process
of interaction between the characteristics of the student on entry
to HE and factors acting during the student’s time at university.
Theories about students’ persistence and success at university
have been consistent in stressing the importance of students’ entry
characteristics as shaping the quality of students’ experiences
and persistence at university (Astin, 1984; Bean & Eaton, 2000).
Personal characteristics (e.g. gender), family background (e.g.
parental educational level), and academic ability (e.g. pre-entry
academic achievement) are major influencing factors in the
first year at university and may affect the quality of students’
transition to higher education in two ways: as distinctive features
that influence the initial commitment with the institution and as
perceptions or expectations about the possibility of completing their
undergraduate programmes (Tinto, 1993). Moreover, adaptation to
68
university is not an unvarying experience, but rather a multiplicity
of complex experiences in which the entry characteristics of the
student interact with process variables and institutional factors,
which must be analysed in the cultural context within which they
are produced. Research findings may therefore differ in relation
to the effects and the meaning of the predictors considered.
The aim of this study was therefore to investigate adjustment to
university, by using the SACQ, in a cohort of first-year Spanish
students. The specific purpose of the study was to examine the
relationships between students’ gender, family background, pre-
university achievement and academic, social, personal-emotional
and institutional adjustment to university.
Method
Participants
The participants in the study were 300 first-year students
attending the University of Santiago de Compostela, a public
university in Galicia. The students were drawn at random from 16
European Higher Education Area (EHEA) undergraduate degree
courses within the five areas of study offered at the University
(Sciences, Social Sciences and Law, Humanities, Health Sciences
and Engineering). All of the students were selected from a larger
sample, by applying the following academic and family-related
criteria: first-time, first-year attendance at university undertaking
full-time courses (60 credits), age less than or equal to 21 years,
undertaking courses that were first or second choices, single and
not employed (i.e. they were economically dependent on their
parents). These criteria were applied in order to select a socially
and culturally homogeneous sample of first-year emerging adult
students.
The final sample included 198 females and 102 males, which
is consistent with the gender distribution of students attending the
university. The average age of the participants was 18.02 years (SD=
0.52). Most students (91%) were from intact families, and 75.7%
were relocated from their parents’ house. The students’ parents
were mostly both employed (62.3%) with a combined middle-
class income (79.7%). Both parents were university graduates in
only 15.7% of cases, and both parents had an elementary level
education in 23.7% of cases.
Instruments
Adjustment to university was assessed with the Spanish version
(Rodríguez et al., 2012) of the Student Adaptation to College
Questionnaire (SACQ; Baker & Siryk, 1984). The measure
examines university adjustment in four dimensions: academic
adjustment, social adjustment, personal-emotional adjustment and
institutional attachment. Academic adjustment includes how well
students deal with educational demands, such as motivation to
complete academic requirement, academic effort and satisfaction
with the academic environment. Social adjustment measures
the student’s success in coping with the interpersonal-societal
demands inherent in college life. Personal-emotional adjustment
involves the student´s psychological state and the extent to which he
or she is experiencing general psychological distress. Institutional
attachment describes the student’s satisfaction with the college
experience in general and the quality of the relationship between
the student and the institution.
 Predictors of students’ adjustment during transition to university in Spain
Participants rated the 67 items of the Spanish version of the
SACQ on a Likert-type 9-point scale ranging from 1 (does not
apply to me at all) to 9 (applies very strongly to me). Higher scores
on the overall scale and the subscales indicate better adjustment.
Spanish validation of the instrument showed good internal
consistency for the full scale (α = .94) and for the subscales of
academic adjustment (24 items, α = .90), social adjustment (20
items, α = .85), personal-emotional adjustment (15 items, α = .89)
and institutional adjustment (15 items, α = .85).
Participants also completed a questionnaire on demographics,
including gender, parents’ educational level (1 = elementary
education, 2 = secondary education, and 3 = higher education),
parents’ employment status (1= unemployed and 2 = employed)
and parents’ income level (1 = low, 2 = medium, and 3 = high).
The parents’ educational level was calculated as the sum of both
parents’ educational levels (with values ranging from 2 to 6), and
parents’ employment status was calculated as the sum of both (with
values ranging from 2 to 4). Students’ pre-university grades were
supplied by the Academic Management Services of the University
of Santiago de Compostela (ranging from 0 to 10).
Procedure
Students received an e-mail with an invitation to participate
in the study, in which the goals and overall procedures were
described and data confidentiality was guaranteed. Although
students were informed that participation was voluntary, those
who completed the questionnaire were compensated with 15€ in
cash. Data was collected by two members of the research team
during the second semester, with the prior consent of students,
according to the deontological code of the Spanish Official
College of Psychologists. Administration of the questionnaire and
demographic survey took place in a classroom at the University,
with groups of ten participants, and took about 30 minutes.
Data analysis
Descriptive statistics and Pearson’s correlations between
entry characteristics and adjustment were calculated. Multiple
hierarchical regression analysis was conducted to predict the
score for each university adjustment subscale, and the independent
variables were entered in three blocks: block 1 examined the effect
of gender, block 2 included family background variables (parents’
educational level, parents’ employment status and parents’ income
level), and block 3 included pre-university achievement. Estimation
of the size and significance of indirect effect was formally tested
using the PROCESS macro for IBM SPSS (22.0).
Results
Descriptive statistics and correlations
Mean values and standard deviations for pre-university
achievement and adjustment subscale scores are shown in Table 1.
Taking into account the number of items, students obtained
higher average scores for institutional attachment (M = 7.51) and
lower scores for academic (M = 5.80) and personal-emotional
adjustment (M = 5.97).
An association between gender and pre-university achievement
was observed, as women entered university with a higher average
grades than men, t (298) = -2.69, p = .007. Although the women
were better adjusted to academic life than men, t (298) = -2.27, p =
.024, the levels of personal and emotional adjustment were lower
than in their male peers, t(298) = 2.47, p = .014.
Correlation analysis revealed that pre-university achievement
was positively correlated with family background variables,
academic, social and institutional adjustment (Table 1). Parents’
educational level was only significantly and positively correlated
with social adjustment (although weakly, r = .12, p<.05), indicating
that students whose parents have higher levels of education tended
to be better socially adjusted to university. The employment status
of students’ parents and their income level were not significantly
related to university adjustment.
Regression analysis: Direct and indirect effects
Regression analysis was used to examine the relationships
between the variables in this study. Multiple regression analysis
revealed that gender and parents’ educational level, employment
status and income level predicted students’ pre-university
achievement, explaining 13.8% of the variance (F (1,296) = 6.52, p
=.011). Parents’ educational level (β = .29, SE = .05, p<.001) and
employment status (β = .14, SE = .11, p<.05) explained a significant
amount of the variance in pre-university achievement (R2 Change
= .116, p<.001), after controlling for gender (β = .17, SE = .13,
p<.01). Parents’ income did not have a significant effect on pre-
university achievement (β = .01, SE = .14, p>.05).
In order to examine the predictive power of personal and family
variables on adjustment to university, a hierarchical multiple
regression analysis was conducted for each adjustment subscale
(Table 2 and Table 3). In this analysis, and because the order of
entry is known to influence the regression outcome, a three step
hierarchical multiple regression was conducted to test whether
gender (Step 1), family background (Step 2) or pre-university
achievement (Step 3) predicted students’ adjustment to university.
To assess the unique contribution of each measure on adjustment,
we examined the standardized regression coefficients in each
regression equation.
Only pre-university achievement was a significant predictor
of academic adjustment, social adjustment and institutional
attachment. By contrast, only gender predicted personal-
emotional adjustment. The final models, including steps 1, 2, and
3, accounted for 13.1% of the variance for academic adjustment
Table 1
Descriptive statistics for adjustment to university scores and bivariate
correlations with pre-university achievement and demographic scores
M SD PUA PEdL PEmS PL
PUA 7.09 1.12 .30** .18** .12*
Academic Adjustment 139.36 (5.80) 28.12 .34** .08 -.01 .02
Social Adjustment 134.25 (6.71) 19.75 .23** .12* .01 -.01
Personal-emotional Adj. 89.65 (5.97) 22.48 .06 .05 .03 .00
Institutional Attachment 112.76 (7.51) 15.58 .22** .09 -.05 -.04
Note: * p<.05, ** p<.01. PUA = Pre-university achievement; PEdL = Parents’ educational
level (ranging from 2 = both parents with elementary education to 6 = both parents with
higher education); PEmS = Parents’ employment status (2 = both parents unemployed, 3 =
one of the parents employed, and 4 = both parents employed); PL = Parents’ income level
(1 = low, 2 = middle, and 3 = high)
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 María Fernanda Páramo Fernández, Alexandra M. Araújo, Carolina Tinajero Vacas, Leandro S. Almeida and María Soledad Rodríguez González

Table 2
A bootstrapping approach was used to test the mediation
Hierarchical multiple regression analysis with gender, family background and effects (Preacher & Hayes, 2004). The direct effect of gender
pre-university achievement as independent predictors of academic and social on the mediator as well as the direct effect of the mediator on
adjustment academic adjustment were determined. The results confirm that
Academic Social
gender significantly predicted pre-university achievement (β =
.15, SE =.13, p<.05), and pre-university achievement significantly
Predictor variables β ΔR2 β ΔR2 predicted academic adjustment (β = .35, SE = 1.37, p<.001). The
standardized indirect effect (β = .05, BootSE = . 02) was significant
Step 1
with the 95% bootstrap confidence interval excluding zero (CI=
Gender .133* .018* -.053 .003
.02, .10). Examination of the ratio of indirect to total effect showed
Step 2 that 39% of the effect of gender on academic achievement was
Gender .140* -.043 mediated by pre-university achievement.
Parents’ educational level .089 .120
Parents’ employment status -.020 -.008 Discussion
Parents’ income level -.010 .007 -.041 .013
This study is the first of its type in which the SACQ (Baker &
Step 3
Siryk, 1984) has been used to investigate adaptation to university
Gender .080 -.083
in a cohort of first-year Spanish students. Studies with European
Parents’educational level -.013 .052
samples are scarce (e.g., Beyers & Goossens, 2002; Rocha &
Parents’employment status -.068 -.040
Matos, 2008; Rodríguez et al., 2012) and our findings may help to
Parents’income level -.013 -.043
increase the generalization of North-American students’ results.
Pre-university achievement .351*** .106*** .233*** .047***
The results of this study are consistent with others that have
Note: * p<.05, ** p<.01, *** p<.001 also found higher scores for dimensions such as institutional
attachment and social adjustment, with North-American first-year
students (Cecero, Beitel, & Prout, 2008) and sophomores (second-
Table 3 year students; Taylor & Pastor, 2007), with Canadian first-year
Hierarchical multiple regression analysis with gender, family background and students (Larose et al., 2011), and with South-African first-year
pre-university achievement as independent predictors of personal-emotional
adjustment and institutional attachment
students (Petersen, Louw, & Dumont, 2009).
In this study, gender was a significant predictor of personal-
Personal-Emotional Institutional emotional adjustment, indicating that the level of personal-
2
emotional adjustment is lower in female students than in their
Predictor variables β ΔR β ΔR2
male peers. This is consistent with the previous findings indicating
Step 1 that female students display a greater need for support because
Gender -.140* .020* .008 .000 they tend to suffer more anxiety, depression and identity-related
problems associated with integration and coping with the
Step 2
transition to university than male students (e.g., Abdullah et al.,
Gender -.137* .017
2009; Bernier et al., 2004). One of the key findings of the study
Parents’ educational level .037 .114
was that pre-university achievement mediated the relationship
Parents’ employment status -.026 -.061
between gender and academic adjustment. Research on gender
Parents’ income level -.011 .002 -.065 .015
differences in SACQ scores has produced contradictory results.
Step 3 Some studies have shown that male students obtain higher
Gender -.150* -.023 mean scores than females on the personal-emotional adjustment
Parents’ educational level .013 .046 subscale (Bernier et al., 2004; Napoli & Wortman, 1998), while
Parents’ employment status -.015 -.093 in other studies women tend to obtain higher scores for academic
Parents’ income level -.012 -.067 adjustment than men (Aspelmeier, Love, McGill, Elliott, & Pierce,
Pre-university achievement .081 .006 .236*** .048*** 2012; Melendez, 2016). Yet other studies have found that gender
* ** ***
is not a significant predictor of adjustment (Aderi, Jdaitawi,
Note: p<.05, p<.01, p<.001
Ishak, & Jdaitawi, 2013; Bernier et al., 2004). In the present
study, the gender of the students was not associated with either
social adjustment or attachment to the institution’s values and
(F (5,292) = 8.83, p<.001), 6.3% of the variance for social adjustment practices. This can be explained in a cultural context. In Spain,
(F (5,292) = 3.89, p= .002), 2.7% for personal-emotional adjustment students may be more socially dependent than in other cultures,
(F (5,292) = 1.64, p= .149), and 6.3% for institutional adjustment (F thus engendering the need for social involvement on campus in
(5,292)
= 3.93, p= .002). both men and women and favouring personal relationships and
Gender significantly predicted academic adjustment; however, attachment to the institution.
when pre-university achievement was included in the model (in step Pre-university achievement was a significant predictor of
3), the previous significant relationship became non significant, and institutional attachment, academic and social adjustment to
only pre-university achievement explained academic adjustment. university, after controlling for the impact of gender and family
This result suggested that the relation between gender and background. These findings are consistent with those of other
academic adjustment is mediated by pre-university achievement. studies using the SACQ, which showed that scholastic aptitude is

70
 Predictors of students’ adjustment during transition to university in Spain
related to academic adjustment and institutional attachment (e.g.,
Wintre et al., 2011). However, it would be misleading to state that
the importance of the students’ previous academic achievement
in university adjustment invalidates the importance of family
background. Prior academic achievement is not a fixed, unalterable
analytical variable, but rather a situational variable that is the result
of numerous factors. This is confirmed by the results of the present
study, showing that parents’ educational level and employment
status predicted students’ pre-university achievement, with an
incremental variance of 11.6%, after controlling for the impact of
gender. This is consistent with previous findings (e.g., Ostrove &
Long, 2007; Padgett et al., 2012; Yazedjian et al., 2009) showing
that the family background may determine how successful the
students will be by influencing their ability to adapt to the various
academic, social and personal-emotional challenges in their new
university environment via pre-university achievement.
The results of this research have important theoretical and
practical implications. Theoretically, it enables researchers to
better understand university adjustment. Accumulated empirical
and theoretical evidence suggests that the degree to which
students are able to successfully adjust to university life may
affect their well-being, academic performance and whether they
persist with their course of study. For many students, the transition
to university is a challenging experience that involves significant
life changes and adaptation to multiple demands whose effects
and significance must be interpreted in the sociocultural context
in which they are produced. In this respect, the present study is
unique in that it is the first to investigate relationships between
entry characteristics and SACQ dimensions and further extends
work in the field by exploring adjustment to university in the
context of a Spanish university. From a practical point of view,
recognition of the influence of certain variables on the successful
transition to university is not by itself sufficient, and empirical
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This study is part of a wider project entitled “La Transición a
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 María Fernanda Páramo Fernández, Alexandra M. Araújo, Carolina Tinajero Vacas, Leandro S. Almeida and María Soledad Rodríguez González
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